Dokushinsha wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Goldsmith" <dgoldsmith@mac.com>
To: "XStylus" <ranma@cts.com>; <ffml@fanfic.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 6:56 AM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Ranma/Matrix] Interface - Chapter Two
on 5/16/2000 11:44 PM, XStylus <ranma@cts.com> wrote:
"They're not your real family, Akane."
Akane began to glow a slight tinge of red.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Akane fumed.
"It's the truth, Akane! If I were to free them out of the
matrix right now and do a DNA test it would show that you're
totally unrelated to them. They're all random souls grouped to
form a family. It's all part of the illusion. None of it is real,
Akane. NONE of it." Trinity elaborated.
This really bothered me.
I think Akane is right. They may not be her birth family, but they're her
family. She spent 16 years living with them. Is an adopted child's family
not real?
The fact that they are genetically unrelated is almost irrelevant, I
think.
If you found out you were adopted, would you no longer care about your
family? The same goes for Ranma's family. Of course, she might be relieved
to find out she's unrelated to Genma. :-)
But... this is the whole premise behind the Matrix. That everything about
the Matrix is fake. In XStylus' fic, Trinity is trying to get Akane to
realize her family is anything but that. You see a similar scene in "The
Matrix", when Morpheus is showing Neo the truth about the Matrix, after he's
been freed from it. Neo emphatically tells Morpheus that what he's saying
is impossible, continually denying it, and finally demands to be taken out
of the construct. With Neo, it's the whole world. With Akane, it's her
family.
Given that people who leave the Matrix still look (more or less) like themselves,
and bearing in mind the issue of familial resemblance it's very possible that
Matrix families are made up of genetically related people anyway, but that's
beside the point.
However, in the context of the fic, just because Trinity says it doesn't mean
that it is true, either objectively or subjectively. It's just the product
of her rebel ideology which denies the validity of any part of the subjective
Matrix experience, and/or possibly calculated to discourage Akane from keeping
the kind of attachment to her family which will let the agents use it against
her. It doesn't have to be true to be useful from Trinity's perspective, and
it probably is how Trinity perceives things anyway.